Achmed Abdullah

“ Struggle and compete? And how could he—he who was sixty-five years of age and gouty andad dicted to flannel underwear and, if the truth be told, to an occasional hot-water bottle? Besides, Liane was so young, and he doubted that he had the right to dictate to her youth, to nag it and twist it and spoil it. Had he not promised her on that day in Paris when she had agreed to accompany him to Samarkand, that he would give her anything and everything in the world—whatever her heart desired? ”

“ Have you given yourself? I knew women before I took to opium—the lesser evil. And once I gained a woman's love by jumping into the Volga—it was early winter, and beginning to freeze—and saving the life of a mangy cur. Did she care for the dog? No. But woman is cruel. Woman likes sacrifice. Why—" he went on, his voice thickening as the opium was taking effect—"if I were you—do you know what I would do——?"
"Yes—?" Prince Gengizkhanski leaned forward, intensely interested. ”

“ Man has as much backbone as woman."
"Oh—has he?"
"Decidedly. But not quite so much of it shows. Look at Mademoiselle Liane's dress! Venus rising from the foam—of Paquin and the Rue Royale!"
More laughter and daring jests, presently interrupted by an obese, good-natured German countess who said that, after all, it concerned nobody except their host.
"He loves her," she added, "and love—" sighing—"is the greatest faith in the world..."
"Which, like all faiths, is sure to wind up in atheism sooner or later," smiled a Russian high-priest, playing with the enormous amethyst cross on his breast. ”

“ I have arrived at the stage of life where I breakfast habitually on a bromo-seltzer, a cigarette, and no food at all." He smiled. "Go and dance and amuse yourself, mon enfant."
"You are awfully, awfully good to me. Far too good. Ivan Alexandrovitch always says so...."
"Does he? And last month it was Pavel Stepanovitch who so charmingly endorsed my character. No, no—" quickly, as he saw her mouth contract into a tiny grimace—"I did not mean to hurt your feelings——"
"You didn't. But I don't want you to be jealous."
"I am not, little soul. And now—run along with your Ivan or Pavel or Boris!" ”

“ And there will be nobody in the future to truffle a Bohemian pheasant as it should be truffled; nobody to mix a champagne cocktail with just the correct proportion of angostura bitters; nobody to cut a proper hand at baccarat; nobody to appreciate Mademoiselle Liane's charming, white shoulders. No, no, mon petit! I prefer death. This new freedom is not good for people of quality——"
So the year passed. Winter came; came spring. The revolution, hoarse with shouting and gorged with blood, settled down to work. Everybody worked except the speculators and profiteers. ”

“ It was always the same: the broken engagements, the young cavalry officers. Only the names changed: Ivan Alexandrovitch or Pavel Stepanovitch or perhaps some young foreigner, American or French. He could not keep track of them. To him they all looked alike: tall, lean, broad-shouldered, clear-eyed. And always her disarming smile, her ready explanation that she had known them in Paris or Moscow or Vienna:
"Don't worry. Absolutely platonic, I assure you. ”

“ Half a year later the chief of the Ethnological Survey forwarded a copy of their reports to the governor-general of Samarkand who read it and turned to his aide-de-camp.
"Do you know where Prince Gengizkhanski is?" he asked.
"No, sir."
"In Tibet. Do you know what he is doing there?"
"No, sir."
"Nor does our pampered and decidedly overpaid Secret Service. They know what he is not doing, though. They know that he is not shooting snow-tiger or big-horn; that he is not trying to further Great Britain's game in our Central Asian sphere of interests ”

“ For a while the news of Prince Gengizkhanski's sudden journey upset certain political circles in Moscow when the governor-general spoke of it in his monthly report. For, just as south of the Himalayas, in India, there was always fear of Russian intrigues, thus north of the hills was there fear of British intrigues; the threat of rebellion stimulated by foreign gold ”

“ A man of his age and refinement in Tibet—the coldest, most cruel, most fanatic country on earth!"
"Do you know the difference between a commoner and an aristocrat?"
"I am not sure, sir."
"When a commoner makes a fool of himself, he does so either for congenital or financial reasons," replied Prince Kutusoff, "while when an aristocrat makes a fool of himself, the reasons are either political or..."
"Or——?"
"Psychological, mon petit. I wonder if Mademoiselle Liane knows...."
But it seemed that she did not. So, presently, Samarkand and the governor-general forgot Prince Gengizkhanski ”

“ American mining engineers who aped the king's English, broadening their a's and dropping their g's; get-rich-quick Rumanian Jews who set their Semitic imagination to inventing a motley and spurious descent from Crimean gipsy chiefs; Poles who claimed to be Lithuanians and Lithuanians who claimed to be Norwegians. Even the English drummers forgot the small beer and the staid, boiled mutton of the Midlands and referred mysteriously to Huguenot great-great-grandmothers and Portuguese second-cousins. ”

“ They died—all—died the slow death of Tibet. Perhaps—" smiling into his short-cropped beard—"their strength of youth was not great enough. Perhaps their love was not deep enough. For, of course, they one and all tried because of a woman's eyes."
Youth and strength—he thought—and love. His youth was past; and the West had sapped his tough Tartar strength. Love—? ”

“ You know—fools and middle-aged lovers rush where angels—" Quick silence and a tinkly laugh.
"Thank you once more, Madame la Baronne. Your advice is both altruistic and excellent. I shall be careful."
He walked away; stopped near the alcove. He heard Liane's voice brushing through, in a headlong, vehement whisper:
"No, no, Ivan! Not tonight!"
"Why not?" came the Cossack's excited accents.
"I promised Prince Gengizkhanski that I would have supper with him."
"Oh—but—golubushka—little dove! The night is glorious, scented with spring. Let's drive out into the steppes, and..." ”